Weaning The Second Time Around.

I don’t know why but weaning is one of those milestones in my babies development that just made me feel a bit nervous. I am not known for my cooking skills and I also love the experience that exclusively breast feeding has brought me both times.

With Mads, we started weaning her at around five months, just with a bit of baby rice to start with, before moving on to puree’s. I did give her finger foods as she got a bit bigger, but I mainly stuck to the traditional method of weaning.

Mads ate a lot for a while but she has become really fussy and I think a lot of that is just part and parcel of being a toddler, but a small part of it is because I didn’t give her a varied enough diet. She is getting better but she still won’t touch vegetables or meats in a traditional roast dinner format, and there are only about four or five evening meals she will eat.

We started weaning LL on the 11th August, the day she turned six months. We started her off on a little bit of porridge, which she quite promptly wolfed down. We stuck with this for a few days, before batch cooking a lot of vegetables and fruits and pureeing them down. I want to primarily still go down the traditional weaning method for my family, but this time what I am doing is giving LL finger foods for lunch so she is getting the best of both worlds.

I managed to get this iPhone photo of the very first time she ever tasted anything other than milk. The look on her little face is one of utter confusion!

My weaning experience has been made a whole lot easier because of the most clever little machine. I was kindly sent the Beaba Babycook Duo and it quite honestly has helped me no end. I knew of Beaba anyway as we had one of their funky beakers. Essentially just a steamer/cooker/blender in one, you pop whatever you need steaming in one or both sides, leave it for up to fifteen minutes, and then blend. It really is that simple.

Obviously steaming preserves all the vitamins and minerals, and makes the food soft enough to then blend up. There are two jugs meaning that you can batch cook really easily, or prepare sweet and savoury separately. I have already used this handy machine countless times because it is just so easy to prepare nice and healthy food for both LL and Mads. I can honestly say it has transformed my weaning experience as it is quick and convenient to use when life is already hectic enough.

We are a month and a half in and so far our weaning adventure seems to be going even better than last time. LL just seems to get ‘it’ and knows what to do. She loves her food and is now on to three meals a day, although as yet we are still breastfeeding on demand and she is having approximately four milk feeds a day and then one at approximately 5am.

For breakfast she normally has porridge, followed by finger foods for lunch- currently her favourites are pitta breads with homous, breadsticks dipped in cheese, toast, blocks of chedder cheese, melon, watermelon and banana. She will then have veg for dinner, or mixed veg or fruit. We have just in the last couple of days started to have a little bit of meat. I have been primarily cooking for her myself, but sometimes if we have run out of time or if we are out she will have a jar or pouch.

There is nothing so far that she doesn’t seem to like, and she is so much messier than her sister because she seems to really enjoy touching and playing with the food in her hands. I am really enjoying our weaning adventure, although I just wish the time wasn’t going so quickly!

We were sent the Beaba Babycook Duo for the purposes of this review but all thoughts and opinions are my own. I would recommend it to anyone, it’s certainly made our weaning experience a lot easier.

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Comments

She really is beautiful. I’m trying to wait until 6 months to start weaning my little girl (although I am getting a lot of pressure from our families to start her soon). I think a combination of traditional and finger food is a great idea and is most likely to be the route I take. I am nervous about starting too, typical first time mum I guess.

She looks so pleased with all the yummy food. I was terrified of weaning Z. I didn’t have much confidence then but i think Id ok if I was doing it second time round. This little blender looks brilliant!

We’re baby led weaning again so I’m not pureeing so much but the idea of a jug to pop all the veg in and then leave it to steam is very tempting! You could always lift a bit of the veg out before the purée stage to give her a bit of finger food of the same taste as the purée she’s used to as well.